Verisense In the News

Verisense In the News

Shimmer President to Discuss the Optimal Use of Wearable Sensors in Clinical Trials at BSN 2019

CAMBRIDGE, MA – May 18, 2019 – Shimmer, a global leader in wearable technology for research applications, today announced that Geoff Gill, president of Shimmer Americas, will be presenting at the Body Sensor Networks (BSN) ’19 pre-conference workshop entitled, “Using mHealth Technology to Enable the Clinical Trial of the Future.” This workshop will be held on May 19 at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Chicago, Illinios.

“With the rapidly growing adoption of mHealth technologies in clinical trials, which is actively encouraged by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we felt it was both timely and important to develop an educational forum where our peers from academia and industry can share their experiences, technological advances, and best practices from the field,” said the workshop’s co-host Dr. Paolo Bonato, director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. Dr. Bonato is also an associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University.

In December 2018, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb stated that leveraging real-world evidence (RWE) to improve regulatory decisions was a key strategic priority for the Agency. The FDA has also introduced a strategic framework to advance the use of RWE to support the development of drugs and biologics.

“I am delighted to have this opportunity to share our experience garnered from developing the Verisense™ wearable sensor platform from the ground up specifically to meet the needs of clinical trials,” said Mr. Gill. “While Shimmer has been developing wearable sensors for more than 10 years, we invested significant time and effort in listening to and understanding the needs of clinical trial sponsors, sites and participants to ensure that when we introduced Verisense earlier this year it would successfully expedite the clinical trial process by putting minimum burden on those three parties. For example, the Verisense battery lasts for up to six months, and our sensors can be worn in the shower or bath, definite pluses for elderly or frail patients participating in a clinical trial who don’t want anything else to remember or worry about.”

Mr. Gill will discuss the benefits of including wearable sensors in clinical trials, obstacles that still need to be overcome, and steps that the industry as a whole should take to accelerate adoption of these devices.

Further information about this workshop can be found at https://www.bhi-bsn-2019.org/workshops.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Mar. 11, 2019 – Shimmer, a global leader in wearable technology for research applications, announced that Paolo Bonato, PhD, director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, has signed a letter of intent to employ Shimmer’s Verisense continuous monitoring platform during his next clinical trial to study motor recovery in stroke survivors.

The signing took place earlier today in the presence of Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton T.D. at Enterprise Ireland’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Global Ireland Lunch. The event was held at the MIT Samberg Conference Center in Cambridge, MA.

Shimmer’s Verisense wearable sensor platform was designed from the ground up to reliably capture accurate and complete biometric data, while placing minimum burden on clinical trial sponsors, sites and participants.

“We are excited to be able to use Shimmer’s new Verisense platform for our stroke study,” said Dr. Bonato. “The platform’s ability to monitor multiple sensors on a participant’s body simultaneously was crucial for this study. With Verisense, we will gain access to all the raw participant data and built-in algorithms will deliver validated metrics. Verisense sensors have a six-month battery life and can even be worn in the shower or bath, which will undoubtedly improve patient compliance and data quality. Furthermore, its monitoring dashboard will give us an overview of all the sensors in the study, while also allowing us to drill down to individual devices.”

“I would like to express my deep gratitude to Enterprise Ireland for their support of Shimmer’s Verisense platform for clinical trials, which goes well beyond facilitating this signing today. Their financial support of our development effort was integral to our ability to bring this product to market so quickly,” said Geoff Gill, president of Shimmer Americas.

Dr. Bonato is also an associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University.